We’ve gone through the three vital initial processes towards achieving zero accident in our work places or workshops. The three processes are cleaning/clearing up, orderly arrangement of items and making them shine. These processes are pretty straight forward and can be effectively carried out; however, to maximize their benefit they have to be carried out in the sequence which begins by cleaning and clearing up of everything in sight, followed by arranging the items that are essential and important to conducting your daily business in the order most comfortable to you and your team members and thirdly keeping them shining and tidy (free from dust) all the time. The combination of these three processes will guarantee that your work place is a safe place at least for the period when it is cleaned. To make it safe for as long as possible requires constant maintenance and continuous improvement of the situation. Making your work place or workshop free from hazardous is important not only to avoid accident and injuries but most important to be lean and in the long run maximizing your profit.
In this post I’ll describe the task which in my opinion is most difficult to be carried out in order to ensure that our work places are safe and inspiring for as long as we desired. The question to be answered is; how can we maintain so that our work places or workshops or offices are well always organized, highly efficient, and spic-and-span? For most of us, the answer would be employing more office assistants or general cleaners and assign them the cleaning jobs. Well, if such shortcuts were taken, the following results could result, clean - may be; efficient - may be not. The problem with us is we never learn to clean up the mess that was made by ourselves in the first place. That’s why most of us would resort to employing cleaners, and there will always be somebody who does the picking job for us. Employing more staff for these menial jobs is definitely not the answer as it would invite more problems into your work place and your operating cost would escalate. On the other hand, if you were organized and efficient more and more cost could be reduced through continuous improvement on the first three processes and standardization of your operational procedures and that will takes us to the forth process of achieving zero accident in your work places.
The forth process to achieving accident free environment with additional benefits of low cost, high quality and high efficient is to conduct our business in accordance to a set of rules that were adopted as the operational standards of the system in which we are in. These rules could be as simple as doing what ever comes first into your ‘in’ bin (first in; first out basis) as described in the previous post. Every thing must go through this process, even though some may be just trash. Until we take a look at them, we don’t know whether they are trash in the first place, so never be judgmental until we are absolute sure that they really are. And don’t work on the easy ones and leaving behind the difficult ones lying idle in the ‘in’ bin, you might be facing the whole bunch of difficult one later. This way, you are assured that all items are being screened through before distributing them into classification like immediate actions or to put in incubations or keep as references or to trash them. You can make use of some good guidelines from time management literatures and employ them as your operational standards.
The key to continuous improvement is to make your standards open and make room for new set of rules. Standards should not be rigid and unchangeable as they would hinder the continuous improvement activities of your organization. Many of us take standards as the entities that are not negotiable which regard improvements as unnecessary and a waste of time. Continuous improvements allow us to strive beyond the limits and setting up improved standards that surpass the capability of our competitors. Only by diligently following the present standards one can discover new areas to study and hence making viable improvements.
What makes standardization so important is actually getting measured results. Accurate and reliable results are the products of good documentation, measurements, standard procedures and data comparison knitted together to make an operational standard. These results could be used to steer the team in the direction towards achieving your desired goals. An on coming vision of the entire organization would then be formulated more realistically with all the teams get together pursuing towards one common target. Over time, every one would be playing their individual role in executing the processes, getting favorable results effortlessly and in most efficient manner; thus making cooperation and team work as the forces behind the organization that could survive harsh and uncertain economic conditions.
In this post I’ll describe the task which in my opinion is most difficult to be carried out in order to ensure that our work places are safe and inspiring for as long as we desired. The question to be answered is; how can we maintain so that our work places or workshops or offices are well always organized, highly efficient, and spic-and-span? For most of us, the answer would be employing more office assistants or general cleaners and assign them the cleaning jobs. Well, if such shortcuts were taken, the following results could result, clean - may be; efficient - may be not. The problem with us is we never learn to clean up the mess that was made by ourselves in the first place. That’s why most of us would resort to employing cleaners, and there will always be somebody who does the picking job for us. Employing more staff for these menial jobs is definitely not the answer as it would invite more problems into your work place and your operating cost would escalate. On the other hand, if you were organized and efficient more and more cost could be reduced through continuous improvement on the first three processes and standardization of your operational procedures and that will takes us to the forth process of achieving zero accident in your work places.
The forth process to achieving accident free environment with additional benefits of low cost, high quality and high efficient is to conduct our business in accordance to a set of rules that were adopted as the operational standards of the system in which we are in. These rules could be as simple as doing what ever comes first into your ‘in’ bin (first in; first out basis) as described in the previous post. Every thing must go through this process, even though some may be just trash. Until we take a look at them, we don’t know whether they are trash in the first place, so never be judgmental until we are absolute sure that they really are. And don’t work on the easy ones and leaving behind the difficult ones lying idle in the ‘in’ bin, you might be facing the whole bunch of difficult one later. This way, you are assured that all items are being screened through before distributing them into classification like immediate actions or to put in incubations or keep as references or to trash them. You can make use of some good guidelines from time management literatures and employ them as your operational standards.
The key to continuous improvement is to make your standards open and make room for new set of rules. Standards should not be rigid and unchangeable as they would hinder the continuous improvement activities of your organization. Many of us take standards as the entities that are not negotiable which regard improvements as unnecessary and a waste of time. Continuous improvements allow us to strive beyond the limits and setting up improved standards that surpass the capability of our competitors. Only by diligently following the present standards one can discover new areas to study and hence making viable improvements.
What makes standardization so important is actually getting measured results. Accurate and reliable results are the products of good documentation, measurements, standard procedures and data comparison knitted together to make an operational standard. These results could be used to steer the team in the direction towards achieving your desired goals. An on coming vision of the entire organization would then be formulated more realistically with all the teams get together pursuing towards one common target. Over time, every one would be playing their individual role in executing the processes, getting favorable results effortlessly and in most efficient manner; thus making cooperation and team work as the forces behind the organization that could survive harsh and uncertain economic conditions.
